


The Explorer

by Bizarra



Series: Come Healing Universe [4]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Come Healing 'verse, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Gen, JC July photo prompt fest, Original Character(s), kidfic(ish)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 13:13:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19442170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bizarra/pseuds/Bizarra
Summary: Toddlers do what toddlers do...





	The Explorer

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Come Healing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19026430) by [Bizarra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bizarra/pseuds/Bizarra). 



> This is my first story in the Photo Prompt fic fest. It is also a fun filler story in my "Come Healing" universe. 
> 
> All Trek characters belong to Paramount/CBS. I'm just giving them a better life.

Story was inspired by this photo:  


Captain Kathryn Janeway strode onto the bridge, an uncharacteristic hour late for her shift. Harry Kim glanced up and automatically made the call. When she shot a Level Five death glare his way, Harry’s comment faded off and ended up sounding more like: “Captain on the bridge.” As she moved past, he quickly sent a note to his best friend, who was currently sitting at the helm.

When he heard the blip on his console, Tom Paris glanced and saw he had a new message. He opened it and noted it was from Harry. It only contained the words: “she is pissed.” He made a face and turned, slightly, as he saw his captain come down the stairs and head past her command chair, toward the occupied first officer’s, with a definite purpose. Tom swiftly turned back to his console, looking as busy as possible, but definitely keeping his ears open. He heard her stop and angled his head enough that he could look behind him without obviously staring. Whatever this was, it was going to be good.

Chakotay had seen her coming from the corner of his eye. When she stopped and placed one hand on the back of his chair and the other on her hip, he braced himself for impact. He looked up and immediately regretted it. It was a good thing the daggers shooting from her eyes no longer affected him. But, he had to admit that, at the moment, he was a little terrified. “Yes, Captain?” Chakotay said in the evenest voice he could manage.

“Can we talk about what your son did this morning?” she snapped sharply.

He relaxed immediately. Then, with a quip that could possibly get him thrown into the brig for the rest of the trip, shot back with: “Oh, he’s **my** son, now?”

She upped the dagger count. And he heard a snicker from the front. It was nice knowing you, Tom.

Kathryn turned at the sound. “Focus on the road, Thomas,” she snapped, “or I’m taking your holodeck privileges away.”

Then Tom said something that either took a lot of balls, or was out of his mouth before he could truly think about what he was saying. “Awww, mom!”

Kathryn quickly straightened and turned to their helmsman. She started toward their hapless pilot and Chakotay did the only thing he could think of to save the poor man’s life: he cleared his throat. Then he noticed it. “What exactly did **our** son do,” he tried so very hard to stop the grin. He failed. “Commander?”

She swiftly turned toward him, bent over his chair, again, and quietly hissed: “He swallowed one of my pips.”

This time, Chakotay didn’t even try to hide the laugh. “I’m going to assume he’s okay, or this would be a very different conversation.” Noticing the glare lessen, he continued: “What did the Doctor say?”

She walked past him and sat, hard, into her own chair, then turned his way. “He said, and I quote: ‘This, too, shall pass’.”

“You didn’t delete the Doctor, did you?”

She huffed. “No, but you have no idea how tempted I was.”

Chakotay laughed. “Why don’t you just replicate a new one?”

She propped her chin on her hand and crossed her legs. The very real panic that Charlie would choke, or be hurt by the small gold disc, was ebbing; her mood was slowly improving, and she was now starting to see the humor in the situation. Kathryn sighed. “I don’t have the rations. It’s either coffee or the captaincy.”

“We all know which is more important to you,” Tom cracked back.

Her eyebrow shot to her hairline and she returned: “Or, I could just take your remaining one, Ensign Paris.”

“So, uh, Commander Janeway,” Chakotay held a PADD across the console between their two chairs, “you could always help me with crew rotations.”

She leveled a flirtatious gaze to her first officer. “And you could always sleep on the couch, Lieutenant Chakotay.” Tom snickered again. “Oh, wait,” she grabbed the PADD, “let’s move Crewman Paris to Gamma shift.”

“Okay, I’ll stop.”

Chakotay grinned and then turned the conversation to a more serious tone. “Where is Ensign Charlie?”

Kathryn chuckled at that, her earlier panic induced mood having cooled. “He’s spending the day in sickbay. The Doctor just wants to make sure it passes without harm.”

“That’s good,” Chakotay replied. “How did he get it?” He knew she kept her rank insignia up on a higher shelf, as did he, because Charlie had hit that age where he was into everything. He was an inquisitive toddler and was constantly exploring his surroundings. Exactly the type of child he expected that he and Kathryn would raise.

“He pushed a chair to the shelf and climbed it,” she answered. At just three years of age, he was a bit stronger than a fully-human child; Kathryn chalked that up to his Cardassian genes. “By the time I caught him, he had it in his mouth. I couldn’t get to him fast enough.”

“Thankfully, it was a pip and not my rank bar,” Chakotay said, the implications not verbalized.

She nodded, took a deep breath, and relaxed back into her chair. Things could definitely have been a lot worse. She swallowed the last of her anger and settled in for the rest of the day. Hopefully, it played out much less eventfully than her morning had.

-

_Doctor to Captain Janeway_

Kathryn and Chakotay exchanged quick glances as she responded with a tap to her combadge. “Go ahead, Doctor.”

 _We’ve had success. At any time, you may pick up both your pip and your child._ He finished that sentence with a barely-concealed order of: _Please._

Kathryn smirked crookedly to Chakotay. “Aye, Doctor. One or both of us will be down there.”

Through the open comm line they could hear the doctor’s exasperated: _No, Charlie!_ With a heavy sigh, he replied: _See that you get here soon._

She covered her grin with a hand and nodded. “On our way. Janeway out.” She placed both hands on the arms of her chair and stood. Their shift was nearly over anyway, so she handed the bridge to Tuvok, for the last hour, and, with Chakotay just behind her, walked to the turbolift.

-

The pair stepped into the medical bay when the doors slid open. “Ah, Captain. Commander. Back corner,” the EMH said with a huff as he busied himself with straightening and organizing his instrument trays.

They followed the Doctor’s instructions and soon saw Charlie, on the floor, next to the last and most private biobed in the room. He was playing with a small shuttle that the Doctor must have replicated for him, an intense look on his small, slightly chubby face. He was half-crawling, with the toy in one hand; deep focus written in his dark brown eyes, and in the crinkling of his horizontal-oval-ridged forehead. Kathryn grinned at the ‘brrrr’ noise he was making as he flew his little shuttle on some imaginary mission.

“He’s already flying a shuttle better than you do,” Kathryn quipped to the man who stood next to her.

Her comment, and Chakotay’s answering laugh, caught the little boy’s attention and he dropped the shuttle. He focused quickly on his parents. 

As the shuttle dropped and a piece flew off, Kathryn chuckled. “I take it back.”

They crouched to his level as Charlie ran toward them with a happy “Mama! Dadda!” Kathryn immediately shot to a stand when the three-year-old hit a forcefield and bounced back, landing on his rear end with an ‘oof’ and a frustrated growl.

“Doctor!” she angrily called. “Why is my child behind a forcefield?”

The EMH had finished with his trays and walked over with a scowl on his face. “I’m a doctor, not a babysitter. This is a sickbay. What else was I supposed to do with him?”

“A …” Kathryn opened her mouth to speak, but she was so angry nothing but a squeak came out. Chakotay took over. “Doctor, do you have the Captain’s pip?”

The Doctor pulled himself to his full height and handed the cleaned and polished pip to Chakotay. He explained to his Captain, with a bit of a snap to his voice: “A doctor’s work is never done, so I put him in the equivalent of a playpen.” The EMH gave a command and dropped the field around the biobed, so the little boy could reach his parents. “It’s a medical forcefield, not security. Just feels like he’s running into curtains.”

She took a deep breath and calmed herself. It made sense to confine him, especially when Charlie could be a bit rambunctious. When her son ran to her, Kathryn picked him up and set him on the biobed. She leaned over him, arms to either side, her nose to his. “Listen you,” she told him softly, “no more demoting Mama.” She lowered her eyelids and gave him a mild version of her glare.

Charlie placed a hand on each of her cheeks and grinned. “No,” he repeated and imitated her look, as intently as a three-year-old could. Kathryn’s features softened into a smile and she pressed a kiss to the center of his forehead. 

She straightened, her arm still around the boy, when Chakotay approached. He reached and affixed the missing pip to her collar. “I hereby re-promote you to Captain.” He gave her a quick kiss to the lips and turned to pick up his son. “Let’s go see what Neelix is trying to poison us all with, tonight.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t end with another trip to visit me.” The Doctor mumbled to himself as the doors slid closed behind the retreating trio


End file.
